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5 Responses to Shiny Happy People

Its amazing how raising one note a half step can change the entire mood of the song. At one point this rendition created a huge grin across my face. I went back and listened to the original and found that the minor key gives it a whole new emotional intensity that is hard not be moved by

That whole project on Vimeo is excellent, I love it. It’s very thought provoking. I’m always thought this song, and especially “Nothing Else Matters”, were incredibly boring songs – mopey, dragging – and in the major scale I don’t. In fact, I almost like them. Why? Is major vs. minor a “taste” preference, and do I have it? But meanwhile, “Riders on the Storm” gets a lot, lot worse in a major scale. Is that just a bad example, or is there something about that song, apart from the others, that works better in minor? Should I learn what that is? All good thoughts. Thanks for finding this.

The West European musical tradition seems mostly hard-wired to a major key = happy, minor key = sad sensibility (hence the more upbeat titles for the major versions here). That’s not so true in other traditions, esp. Russian. You can hear one good example in the Amazon 30-second free sample for the song, “Kudryafchik Maladio” (Theo Bikel and the Pennywhistlers). Search under that title, but it’s a typo. The last word should be “Maladoi”. There’s a touch of complaint of unrequited love in the lyrics, but I don’t think that’s meant seriously. Mostly the mood is playful and flirtatious. It does, of course, modulate to the associated major key at times, as is common in Russian songs, but the minor predominates. Russian is closer to the Mideast and South Asia, where there are many modes.

Another good one is “Zajko Kokorajko” [Macedonian], about a rabbit’s wedding. There are various versions on Amazon and YouTube, but none sound as good to me as the one I remember from folk-dancing long ago. It hits the Western ear as basically minor in key, but it actually fits more into the modes prevalent in the old Ottoman realm.

Klezmer music is closely related, and a great happy-minor song is “Di Mezinke Oysgegebn” or just “Di Mezinke”, about the great day when the youngest daughter is finally married off. No really great versions on YouTube that I’ve found, but for novelty, it’s the first song in the video “Milla Jovovic Two Yiddish Songs”, a scene from a movie. I like Milla better in the Resident Evil series. No singing, but lots of good stunts.